By David Rogers. RALEIGH, N.C. — For Charlotte Torgerson and Kate Sears it was sweet 16 — 16 points, each, en route to a convincing, 50-36 win over Chapel Hill in the game to decide 7th place for the Wonderland bracket of the John Wall Holiday Invitational basketball tournament.
The Pioneers made 7-of-19 shots from behind the 3-point arc, slightly better than their season average to date. Four of those seven from long distance came in the first quarter when Watauga jumped out to a 22-2 lead by the end of the period.
To be fair, the Tigers were without arguably their best player in Laynie Smith, who leads the team in scoring, field goal percentage, blocks, assists, and steals. The 6-4 senior was unavailable due to a volleyball commitment.
As it was, Chapel Hill made it a point to get the ball inside to 6-3 sophomore Eva Smith and she didn’t disappoint, pouring in a game-high 19 points. Unfortunately, that inside strategy was about the only thing working for the Tigers, who made only 1-of-18 3-point attempts (5.6 percent).
By contrast, the Pioneers had three players in double figures, including Sears and Torgerson with 16 apiece along with Julie Matheson (10 points). Sears tied for game-high honors with nine rebounds, Chapel Hill’s Scarlett Gilner and Haara Umenwalin sharing the honor. All nine of Sears’ rebounds were on the defensive end. The Pioneer junior also tallied a game-high six assists.
Chapel Hill used a distinct size advantage to all but dominate in the paint, where they scored a 26-16 advantage and an 11-2 advantage in second chance points with their strong offensive rebounding, but the Tigers just couldn’t keep up with the Pioneers’ up-tempo attack in transition nor Watauga’s bench depth.
With the win, Watauga improves to 9-3 on the young season, Chapel Hill falling to 8-4. The Pioneers close out their early non-conference schedule on Jan. 5 at North Wilkes before hosting South Caldwell in a Northwestern Conference season opener on Jan. 12.
